Day 42

News just in: Hitler, it seems, really did only have one ball. Reports of the other’s being sighted in vicinity of the Albert Hall are, however, unconfirmed. Scientists recovering the body from the Führerbunker, where it had been doused in petrol and set alight, report that – and this is not a word of a lie – the scrotal sack was “singed but preserved,” and very much not the full purse of coppers.

In other news, Göring and Göbbels in a tree K-I-S-S-I-N-G. And Himmler’s mum dries her knickers in the Reichstag.

The article that I linked to up there gives three possible theories about the absent dictatorial gonad. Broadly speaking they go: #1 Birth Defect, #2 Tampering, #3 Commie Disinformation.

I’d like to posit #4 Black Magic. You’ll notice the Soviet scientist in charge of the post-mortem was called Doctor Faust Shkaravaski. Yes, Faust: that chap from the legends that sold his soul to the devil so he could find out everything there was to know about the world without having to invent Wikipedia.

Now, in most of the popular retellings of the story, the stupid author gives Faust a get out clause. Goethe has him rescued by angels; and Marlowe has his pals have a whip round and emergency seance. Thomas Mann fudges the issue a bit by getting all metaphorical about Nazi Germany, and Mikhail Bulgakov is simply bonkers.

But what if Faust had read the small print in the contract, and it read: “The Devil agrees to reveal all the secrets of Heaven and Earth to the party of the first part in return for the free and unrestricted use of the above named’s soul for all eternity at the time of his death. The party of the first part shall be exempted from the terms and conditions of this and any other contract with the Devil, upon payment of the release sum of One Testicle of the Führer und Reichskanzler. Both testes will secure the party of the first part eternal free parking in hell and any other of the underworld boroughs, as well as the right to drive sheep through the town.”

The truth is down there.

6.45: God this is a tough chapter. Another morning of retching out a small number gauche, unwieldy phrases and deleting them again. About two thirds, I’d say of the way through it now – and each word a hard birth – hopefully the next chapter will sing from my fingers like Maria Callas doing the uplifted warbly bits.